The month of May showed that renewables can still play their part in providing large amounts of electricity even in summer months. Wind turbines alone provided enough electricity to supply 95% of Scottish homes thanks to windy weather. The 863,495MWh of electricity provided to the grid was an incredible increase of 20% compared to May 2016.

Solar energy was also increasingly able to supply 100% of electricity needs to houses fitted with panels across a number of areas in Scotland. Aberdeen, Dumfries, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Lewick houses fitted with photovoltaic panels benefited from 100% of their average use generated from the sun. Solar hot water panels also provided 90% of household’s average hot water needs in the same Scottish areas.

Across the United Kingdom there was also records broken on the 26th May with the National Grid reported a peak of 8.5GWh over a half hour period at midday. This was almost a quarter of total UK demand.

Scotland continues to increase its renewable energy capacity with an average annual increase of over 660MW since the end of 2008. Total installed renewables capacity sat at 8642GW at the end of 2016 of which the breakdown can be found below. This ever-increasing renewables capacity allows Scotland to reach renewable energy targets and climate change targets whilst still exporting low carbon electricity to its neighbours.

Poveria Biomassasta Project (Power from the Biomasses), collaborating with the NPA Project GREBE, is establishing a network of renewable energy demonstration sites in North Karelia, Finland.

Several of the sites, such as Eno Energy Cooperative or small-scale combined heat and power of Kuittila Power Ltd., are already famous examples of sustainable energy at the local level. Together with updates of current sites, there are number of new examples for demonstrating new technologies and business models. Poveria Biomassasta will gather the energy sites as a demonstration network and provide access to them through the GREBE Renewable Energy Business Portal.http://www.renewablebusiness.eu/

The energy enterprises in North Karelia have joint development on the integration of solar energy solutions into district heating plants – and a new project, Poveria auringosta (Power from the Sun), has been launched for the purpose. The project will support attending enterprises in energy system planning and carrying out the investments and follow-up. In addition, there has been new interest in energy storage opportunities in the region, and several investments for energy storage are prepared. The practices in wood energy, technology manufacturing, and hybrid systems will also be demonstrated through the network.

The renewable energy demonstration network in North Karelia will be launched at the end of 2017. Karelia UAS will provide further information of the demonstration network and available case examples through the GREBE and Poveria Biomassasta projects.

The combination of increased use of solar energy and new technology makes it possible for everyone to become both producers and consumers of solar energy – and this situation would lead us to start talking about procumers, game changers on the energy market.

Solar PV – Attractive business investment

Solar PV has evolved from a niche technology with off-grid solutions and a very limited market – very unattractive business for investors – until the mid-2000s when the solar PV industry entered a phase of rapid and sustained growth in globally installed capacity, driven by:

Falling technology cost

Strong support mechanisms

Rising electricity prices

Rising consumer engagement

The strong support mechanisms in the European market created a wave of demand that developed a solar PV industry, a growth that has gradually shifted from an European business to include China and the US in a global market. In 2015 investments in solar PV accounted for nearly half of all investments in renewable energy globally. By 2020 global installed solar PV capacity is expected to triple relative to today’s level, and reach about 700 GW.

The solar resources in Norway

Developments of Solar PV market are lagging behind neighboring markets. At the end of 2015 the total installed capacity was:

Norway – 15 MW

Sweden – 160 MW

Denmark – 790 MW (holiday home off-grid segment)

Do this situation exist because there is less sunshine in Norway than in rest of Europe? No – the solar resources in Norway are comparable to those of central Europe. Lower solar insolation is compensated by cooler ambient air tempratures, which increase solar PV system efficiency. So the development of the Norwegian solar PV market is significantly less attractive than in the neighboring markets because of the economic factors – rather than the solar resources.

The economics of solar PV in Norway

The economics of solar PV in Norway are significantly less attractive than in neighboring markets:

Low electricity prices – 50% below EU average.

High technology costs – 60% above EU average.

Low levels of financial support

In addition to neighboring markets – the absence of a simple and consistent regulatory framework makes it more difficult for potential customers to move from idea to investment decision. Yet – the last two years there have been an higher activity in the commercial building segments, why?

The main reason is that adopters look beyond economics when opting for solar PV investmets. For today’s adopters economics are only one of several sources of motivation – curiosity play a role in the decision to go solar – curiosity about:

New technology

Environmental benefits (Local RE Production/Local employment)

Emotional values (sustaiability strategy)

Self-produced renewable electricity (avoid electricity network bills)

The support mechanisms has contributed to lowering the up-front investments cost of solar PV in Norway, but in spite of this the profitability of solar PV in Norway remains low, due to record- low electricity prices and high technology cost.

Electricity network bills – Investments in the distribution and transmission electricity grids are estimated to increase the electricity network bills with 25% by 2025 relative to today’s level (2015).

At the same time – technology prices are expected to fall by 30-40% relative to today’s level. This is driven partially by a global trend of continous cost reduction for modules and inverters, as well as cost reduction of installation, as the market and solar industry mature.

If this analysis is correct – the payback time for residential solar PV systems in Norway are set to fall to about 10 years (subsidy free payback time). With existing investment support in place, a 10 year payback is expected already sometime around 2023, falling to 7-8 years in 2030.

Transformation of the market

The rising of electricity prices and the falling of technology cost in the solar PV market would be the key factors that gives birth to the Norwegian procumers.

Consumers – will become procumers; today’s passiv consumers will become active producers of electricity from renewable energy sources – with options:

Standardization – the need to deal with multiple actors and bureucratic rules:

-PV providers

-Network companies

-Regulators

Procumers – the game changers

The Solar PV market will continue to grow, as profitability improves over the coming years. As key stakeholders the network companies and regulators should assess to what extent the existing capabilities are sufficient to support the development of Solar PV. At the same time, they should consider how they can help simplify the process for customers as individuals and for SME/Industry as a whole.

Solar PV commercial customers, individuals and SME’s, look upon Solar PV as a sustainable energy strategy – and they would soon be joined by lager players wanting to enter the market. The procumers has start to ask questions that makes it necessary for actors in the energy sector to define the roles they wish to have in the emerging market. The procumers asking key questions as:

What are the direct and indirect benefits of Solar PV for me/my business?

A profitability analysis alone does not provide a complete answer to all the procumers questions, but the Norwegian solar PV market shows growth and the profitability analysis gives answers that indicates that the market would increase over a relatively short periode of time. The procumers would stay in the market driven by both rational-economic facts and non-economics considerations – this couls change the whole energy market in Norway. The procumers could become game changers.

It is therefore important for commercial and public actors to initiate a strategy process around solar PV – with a view to prepare for the future developments of Norwegian solar PV.